


a blue december

by pyrrhlc



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Candlenights, Gen, The Adventure Zone Secret Santa 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-07 05:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12834246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhlc/pseuds/pyrrhlc
Summary: Taako’s eyes flicker back to him, his face undecided. The heat of the oven is making it difficult to think, he decides. Yes. That’s it. Taako can’t possibly be fond of this strange, unexpected child. It would be preposterous. It would be most unlike Taako, the elf who has never cared, who never sought to stay, to think extensively about somebody other than himself. No. Most unbecoming.Taako is making macaroons. Angus helps. Set during the first Candlenights.





	a blue december

**Author's Note:**

  * For [randus-for-president](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=randus-for-president).



“Sir,” Angus says, “If you don’t mind me asking—”

Taako flicks a casual finger in the direction of the mixing bowl. “I do.”

“—just how many macaroons do you think we need?”

It is, if Taako thinks the question through carefully enough, a fair point. The Bureau’s kitchen is almost completely covered in a mass of pale pink mixing bowls – some self-stirring, some floating lazily in mid-air. It had taken several second-level spell slots to get the electric mixer to work exactly the way he wanted, but Taako is pleased with the result. It hadn’t been easy, transfiguring each and every chopping board available into a baking tray; most of them, it had to be said, still looked slightly wooden. He wouldn’t worry about it. He’d spent most of his energy yesterday evening converting the remaining salt stocks into sugar, the bread flour into butter; the ingredients sit in heaped piles all around him, like spices drained of colour. The smell leaking from the oven – carefully extended – is downright heavenly. Damn right, too. Taako never fails where dessert is concerned.

He looks back down at Angus, fighting back a small twitch of a smile. Angus’s glasses are smeared with flour, his Candlenights jumper – the small suit remains conspicuously absent – almost entirely covered by a small white apron, the twin of Taako’s own. Chef-smart. Ready to bake. Taako knows what he’s about.

“Sir?”

“Only thirty-four batches to go, Ango.” he says, handing the boy a spoon as he turns to examine the trays already in the oven, the macaroons within already turning brown at the edges. “Half of them will end up being transmuted into cakes, I reckon. Probably for the best, don’t you think?”

“But sir—”

“Yes, boychik?”

“You’ve already baked about a hundred macaroons,” Angus says, glancing down at the ramshackle collection of tins stood heaped by the doorway. “Don’t we have to decorate all of these?”

“I’ve already told you, bubbaleh, we have a lot of guests, we can do it with magic—”

“You never used to, sir.”

Taako freezes. His hands stammer slightly; he can feel Angus watching him as turns his head sharply, quickly, before Angus can see or analyse that scratch of doubt that drags itself across his face.

“Sir?”

“I told you,” Taako repeats. His voice is uncertain. The nearest mixing bowl freezes in mid-air, shudders, and falls back into Taako’s arms. He snatches back the spoon from Angus and twirls on the spot, but a very large part of him knows all too well that Angus isn’t fooled. “Bureau’s a big place. The Director wanted a party – I’m only making snacks.”

“But sir—” Taako blinks at him as he leans forwards, half-balancing on the balls of his feet. He barely comes up to Taako’s chest. “You really didn’t. Magnus said so, too. You only ever cooked for him and Merle once, he said, before you really knew each other—”

Taako closes his eyes, the rest of Angus’s words fading slowly out into static. Angus is the world’s greatest detective. He should’ve known he couldn’t bake alongside him and continue on undisturbed, without questions— Angus knows everything, he always knows…

“Magnus wouldn’t know good food if it slapped him in the face,” Taako says, his words braver than his heart, braver than his stomach. “Making huaraches for those two fools was easy living. I already had all the ingredients. This is different.”

_That time, I didn’t transmute anything. I was safe. They were safe._

_Safe enough, anyway. Stupid chucklefucks, trusting me to cook for them._

“Different how, sir?”

“Ango, if you keep asking me questions like this I’m gonna hit you with a stunning spell. Cha’boy doesn’t appreciate the interrogation, OK?”

“You just seem afraid, sir.” Angus says, making Taako’s chest clench in a way that is wholly unlike him. “You shouldn’t be. These macaroons are great.” He picks up one of the boxes lying at his feet, opening the lid and sniffing expectantly. Taako fights back a second smile as Angus’s face relaxes into contentment – the face of a satisfied child.

The child Ango should be, he thinks, just for a moment, and then the thought is swept away again, banished to back of his skull. He can’t get too fond of this kid. It would break his heart, he’s sure, in more ways than one. Taako has always been peculiarly afraid of losing people, in one way or another.

“Sir? Can I make the icing?”

Taako’s eyes flicker back to him, his face undecided.The heat of the oven is making it difficult to think, he decides. Yes. That’s it. Taako can’t possibly be fond of this strange, unexpected child. It would be preposterous. It would be most unlike Taako, the elf who has never cared, who never sought to stay, to think extensively about somebody other than himself. No. Most unbecoming. He looks round at the towering piles of macaroons. A box for every member of the Bureau, more or less. He wonders if he’ll actually have the nerve to give them. Perhaps he should taste them first, just to be sure. Before Ango can eat them prematurely, as Taako is almost certain he will. It’s just a precaution, after all. He doesn’t really believe it. Doesn’t truly care for Ango, or like him. No. It’s nothing to do with that. He’s a chef. He has to be the first to eat what he’s cooked. It’s natural. Completely natural.

Taako realises that he just referred to himself as a chef for the first time in years, and it shakes him. It feels like a footnote tacked on carelessly to the ramshackle, torn-up tale that is his life. Taako has never been steady. He will not be steady now.

He does, however, snatch back the box of macaroons as Angus slips in a hand to eat one for himself. It is not a well-balanced action. Angus very nearly topples backwards.

“Sir!”

“No can do, shortstop.” he says, plucking the offending macaroon from Angus’s fingers. He bites into it with forced certainty, smiling around the mouthful. “Taako comes first. Chef’s rights and all that.”

He doesn’t die. He hadn’t expected to, but still, it’s a comfort. Angus peers at him suspiciously from behind flour-covered glasses but doesn’t comment. He doesn’t need to. He’s the world’s greatest detective, so Taako thinks that he probably already knows what’s up. He isn’t entirely sure whether that’s comforting or not. Probably not, he decides.

He hopes that Angus hasn’t deduced the fact that he’s killed almost forty people, by accident, and with hardly a backwards glance. That would be too much. He offers him a macaroon instead, by way of armistice. It seems to work.

Angus smiles as he takes the macaroon from Taako, and Taako – a moment of weakness, sure, but it’s a _moment_ , and he can always go and scrub his brain out with magic later – smiles back. Angus does not waver.

“I think they’ll love them, sir.” he says, as he bites down and swallows rest of the macaroon. “They’re every bit as good as I thought they would be.”

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for the wonderful [Mary](http://randus-for-president.tumblr.com/), written for the Adventure Zone Secret Santa 2017! I hope you like this - Taako and Angus’s relationship is one of my favourites. Taako having any kind of feelings, actually, is one of my favourite things. What a good, good pair of boys.
> 
> Have a very merry Candlenights! I hope it’s a good one!


End file.
